were kept of every Family made them have a more separate and distinct Interest in every Tribe and a more exact Account of Times and perfect Knowledge of things in every Family and therefore they were not so capable of being imposed upon in things of this nature as the People of other Nations might be where Marriages and Inheritances are promiscuous and no occasion is given for the like emulation and watchfulness over one another and where no such Remembrances and Notices of the Transactions of Affairs are to be consulted by any one of every private Family In the wilderness of Sinai on the first day of the second month in the second year after they were come out of the land of Aegypt Moses and Aaron assembled all the congregations together and they declared their pedigrees after their families by the house of their fathers according to the number of their names from twenty years old and upward by their poll Num. i. 1 18. and this was done again in the Plains of Moab at the end of Forty Years chap. xxvi And these Genealogies we preserved not only during the Captivity Ezra vii and down to the Reign of Herod but even to the time of Josephus who in his First Book against Apion says That they had the Genealogies of their Priests then still extant for two thousand Years By which means it came to pass that every Tribe had a kind of separate Interest which was the occasion of Korah's Sedition against Moses And every Man amongst their Tribes might certainly hereby know how many Generations he was removed from those who first took possession of the Land of Promise and might find the Names of his Ancestors registred who were in the Wilderness with Moses or came with Joshua over Jordan And this must make the memory of their Ancestors more dear and familiar to them and it must make them have a greater regard for any thing they had left behind them especially for a Book upon which their Rights of Inheritance and the Title they had to all they enjoyed depended This was the Deed by which they held their Estates and the Last Will and Testament as it were of their Ancestors amongst whom the Land was divided But it is certain Men are more careful of nothing than of the Writings by which they enjoy their Estates and there is no great dauger when a will is once come to the hands of the right Heir that it will be lost or salsified to his prejudice but if the Books of Moses were altered it must be upon the account of some advantage to such as must be supposed to make the Alterations and consequently to the disadvantage of others who therefore would have found themselves concerned to oppose such Alterations But as the Books of Moses were in the nature of a Deed of Settlement to every Tribe and Family so they were a Law too which all were obliged to know and observe under the severest Penalties And being so generally known and universally practised it could no more be falsified at any time since its first Promulgation than it could be now at this day For 2. Another thing which made the People of Israel less capable of being imposed upon in this matter was That they were by their Laws themselves obliged to the constant study of them they were to teach them their Children and to be continually discoursing and meditating on them to bind them for a sign upon their hand that they might be as frontlets between their eyes to teach them their children speaking of them when they sate in their houses and when they walked by the way when they lay down and when they rose up to write them upon the door-posts of their houses and upon their gates Deut. xi 18 19 20. Nothing was to be more notorious and familiar to them and accordingly they were perfectly acquainted with them and as Josephus says knew them as well as they did their own Names they had them constantly in their mouths and thousands have died in defence of them and could by no Menaces or Torments be brought to forsake or renounce them And to this end One Day in Seven was by Moses's his Law set apart for the learning and understanding of it The Jews have a Tradition That Moses appointed the Law to be read therice every Year in their publick Assemblies And Grotius (q) Grot. ad Matth. xv 2. is of this opinion However the Scripture informs us that Moses of old time had in every city them that preached him being read in the synagogues every sabbath-day Act. xv 21. It is indeed the common opinion That there were no Synagogues before the Captivity But then by Synagogues must be understood Places of Judicature rather than of Divine Worship for there is no reason to question but the Jews had their Proseuchas or Places of Prayer from the Beginning since it is incredible that those who lived at a great distance and could not come to Jerusalem on the Sabbath-days and other time of Divine Worship besides the three great Festivals when all their Males were bound to be at Jerusalem should not assemble for the Worship of God in the places where they dwelt nay they were by an express Law obliged to it on the Sabbaths The seventh day is the sabbath of rest an holy convocation ye shall do no work therein it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings Lev. xxiii 3. They must therefore have places in all their Dwellings to resort to where they held their Convocations or Assemblies and these they went to on the New Moons as well as on the sabbaths 2 King iv 23. which made the Psalmist lament that the Enemy had burnt up all the synagogues of God in the land Psal lxxiv. 8. And being met together there is as little doubt to be made but that they read the Law which was to be read by them in their Families and much more in their Publick Assemblies on their solemn Days of Divine Worship The Books of Moses therefore were â—ead in their Synagogues in every City 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from ancient Generations or from the first settlement of the Children of Israel in the Land of Canaan And then at the end of every Seven Years the Law was read in the most publick and solemn manner in the Solemnity of the Year of Release in the Feast of Tabernacles Moses wrote a Book of the Law and commanded it to be put in the side of the Ark Deut. xxxi 29. as the Two Tables of Stone were put into the Ark it self chap. x. 5. and this he delivered to the Priests and to all the Elders of Israel and commanded them saying At the end of every seven years in the solemnity of the year of release in the feast of tabernacles when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their
Marcellin b. xxiii c. 1. Heathen Historian who was then living and wrote the History of those times and has shewn himself in no respect over favourable to the Christians but was a Soldier under Julian and had no inclination to say any thing that might seem to diminish his Character The Judgments also which befell several of the greatest Persecutors of the Christian Religion were so miraculous and so terrible as to extort a confession from some of them of God's Justice in their Punishment and to force them to re-call their persecuting Edicts and change them for others in favour of Christianity (h) Euseb Hist lib. viii c. 17. ix c. 10. Lactant de Mortib Persecut c. xxxiv 49. The Edicts of Maximianus and Maximin to this purpose are to be seen in Eusebius and (i) Hieron in Hab. c. iii. the Judgment upon Julian was so sudden and so remarkable that some of the Heathen cavilled that the God of the Christians had not shewn that Mercy and forbearance which they reported of him in it And when the Power of Miracles which came down on the day of Pentecost upon the Apostles and was continued in the Church after them thus manifested it self in opposition to the pretences both of the Jews and Heathens in such a manner as must provoke them to make all the discoveries they possibly could concerning it when it thus triumphed over all the Gods of the Heathens whilst its poor and persecuted Professors were under the feet of the Heathen Emperors and lay continually exposed to their cruelties and at the peril of their Lives proffered in publick Apologies by a miraculous Power or as the Apostle speaks by the Power and Demonstration of the Spirit to prove their own Religion true and theirs salse and its cruelest Persecutors were by miraculous Judgments forced to become its Protectors this was all that could be desired towards the fulfilling the Promise of our Saviour to his Apostles that they should become his Witnesses to all Nations But III. The Gospel could not have been thus propagated unless this Power of the Holy Ghost had been still further manifest by the courage and resolution and patience of the Apostles under their sufferings Our Saviour tells them that they should receive power after that the Holy Ghost was come upon them to become witnesses unto him both in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and in Samaria these were the places where our Saviour himself had wrought his Miracles and where he had been hated and persecuted and at last crucified and there is reason to believe that the Apostles went not from Jerusalem and the parts adjacent (k) Euseb Hist lib. â— o. 18. till twelve years after his Ascention and when they had testified his Resurrection and Preached his Gospel to the Jews their work was not yet an end but they were to be his Witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the Earth and even thither several of them went fearing no dangers and being discouraged at no sufferings There is a natural boldness and courage in some men by which they are often carried both to do and to endure a great deal more than others but it was not so with the Apostles they were naturally very timorous and faint hearted they all forsook their Master and fled when he was first apprehended and then were very backward to believe his Resurrection and when they and the rest of the Disciples were convinced of it they did not preach is to others but after he had been seen of them forty days and discoursed with them of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God they still had mistaken notions and expectations concerning it when they therefore were come together they asked of him saying â—ord wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel And when Christ was taken up from them into Heaven they stood gazing up after him not knowing what to think of it till two Angels admonished them that it was in vain for them to stand looking thus any longer and after his Ascention they staid ten days before they ventured to publish any thing of what had come to pass till on the day of Pentecost in a visible and audible manner the Holy Ghost descended upon them and quite changed their temper and of the most timorous made them the most couragious and resolute inspiring them with a Divine Vigor and presence of mind For of all their Miracles few seem to have been more wonderful than that firmness and constancy of mind which men so low and mean and abject and before so fearful as the Apostles were now shewed upon all occasions When our Saviour spoke to these his poor Disciples and commanded them to go and teach all Nations Matt. xxviii 19. it was such a command as no King nor Law-giver ever presumed to give in the height of all his Power and Greatness and when God himself sent Moses to the Children of Israel only Moses feared the success and would fain have declined the Message And how might the Disciples have replyed to our Saviour how shall we Preach to the Romans and dispute with the Graecians and discourse with the most remote and barbarous Nations who have been bred up in the knowledge only of our own Native Tongue How can we compel all Nations to forsake the worship of the Gods of their several Countries and to observe all things whatsoever we are commanded to teach them With what force of Eloquence are we fitted for such a design What hope can we have to succeed in an attempt to set up Laws in opposition to the Laws established for so many Ages in behalf of their own Gods What strength can we have to overcome such difficulties and to accomplish such an Enterprize But they made no objections our Saviour had conversed with them forty days after his Resurrection and now tells them that all Power is given unto him in Heaven and in Earth and he commands them not to depart from Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father which saith he ye have heard of me Acts i. 4. And when the Holy Ghost was come they were endued by him with a courage and resolution almost as wonderful as the Miracles they wrought to perperform the great work which lay before them they were not in the least daunted at any dangers or torments or deaths but went on courageously in their Duty by the power and assistance of the Holy Ghost by whom they were enabled to bring the world to the obedience of the Gospel of Christ They opposed themselves to all the assaults of Men and Devils Nothing could now discourage them who before were so timorous and unbelieving the coming of the Holy Ghost down upon them wrought a mighty change in them who were to work as great an alteration in all the world besides St. Peter standing with the Eleven lift up his voice he spoke with wonderful Resolution and the rest stood by to bear witness to
Gross God was pleased therefore to display his Glory before the Angels and by several steps and degrees to excite their Praise and Love and Adoration which moved them to Songs and Shouts of Joy and by this means his Glory and their own Happiness was advanced much beyond what it would have been if all things had been created and disposed into their Rank and Order at one Moment They look'd into the first Principles and Seeds of Things and every day presented them with a glorious Spectacle of New Wonders the first Seven Days of the World they kept a continual Triumph or Jubile and thus their Voices were tuned and raised as I may say to those Praises which were to be their Employment and their Happiness to all Eternity the more they saw the more they knew and the more they knew of the Works of God the more they for ever loved and adored Him This affords us a Reason why so much more time was spent in the forming of the Earth and the Creatures belonging to it than in the formation of the Heavenly Bodies Because the Heavens are of a Uniform and Similar Nature and a vast Vacuum is now supposed to be in them and therefore the Nature of them might without any successive Production be displayed at once to the Angels but the Earth being of a Compound Nature and containing Creatures of very different kinds it required more time to give a distinct perception of the several Parts and Species of it And the Planets being of the like Nature with the Earth since the Earth the Seat of Man's Habitation was framed by such leisurely degrees as might give a suitable Idea of it the other Planets might be framed at once there being nothing more in them than what was observeable in the Formation of the Earth or they might be framed together with the Earth by the same Measures and Degrees But according to the Mechanical way the Angels would have only the Prospect of a vast Chaos rolling and working for many thousands of years perhaps before any thing considerable could have been framed out of it And those tedious delays must yet according to this Notion have been carried on by such certain Methods that there could have been little wonderful in it to an Angel when the Mechanical Philosophers themselves think they can point out the several Steps and Motions by which all was done The making of Man was the last and finishing Work of the Creation when the World was prepared for the Reception of him and he was made with much solemnity Let us make Man in our Image after our Likeness Gen. i. 26. and the Man and the Woman were made apart For Adam was Created with all the Perfections suitable for him both as a Man and as the first Man out of whom Eve was to be formed As Man he was to have all the Parts and Faculties which Men have now but in greater Perfection as the first Man he was besides to have a Rib or (c) Dicunt etiam Vnam ex eostis ejus idem esse quod unam ex partibus ejus vel unam partem ejus quam explicationem confirmant ex eo quod in Targum vocabulum Tzelah costa redditur per Setar ut Tzelah costa Tabernaculi redditur in Targum per Setar latus Tabernaculi ita hic dicunt Mitzalotar idem esse quod Missitrohi Maimon More Nevoch Part 2. c. 30. Part out of which the Woman was to be made Which being the Principal and as it were the seminal Matter no mention is made of any other but as Animals and Plants are properly said to come from the Seed tho' they are not made of that only so Eve was properly made of Adam's Rib tho' other Matter besides might go to her Composition This way of Formation was to betoken that Love and Duty which ought to be between Husband and Wife And as the Creation and Happiness of Man provoked the Envy of Evil Angels so no doubt it occasioned the Joy and Praise of the Good ones 2. By this successive and Gradual Production and Disposition of things in six days at the Creation the Glory of God is likewise more manifested to Men than it would have been if all had been done at once or by slow and tedious Methods This gives us a more clear and distinct comprehensive Notion of the Works of God than we could otherwise have had It is acknowledged that Moses has given such an Account of the Creation as is more intelligible and better adapted to the Capacities of the generality of Men than that which any one would now obtrude upon us as a true Account of it But whatever Reasons can be assigned why the Creation should be described as it is in the Book of Genesis the same Reasons will prove that it was fitting it should be so performed If it be more suitable to the Capacities and Apprehensions of Men that the Creation of the World should be delivered to us as finished in six days rather than in a less or a longer time it was fit that it should have been really finished in this space of time and should be indeed so performed as might make the History the more useful to us For in respect of God it was alike to Create all things in an instant or to do it successively in a shorter or a longer time and in respect of Mankind no reason can be assigned why the History of the Creation should be delivered so as to represent it to Men as performed in this manner but the same Reason will hold why it should have been in the same manner performed God Blessed the Seventh day and Sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his Work which God Created and Made Gen. ii 3. and so Exod. xx 10 11. the Observation of the Sabbath or of one day in Seven to the Honour of God is established upon the Worlds being Created in six days and therefore if it be reasonable to keep one day in Seven Holy in Remembrance of the Creation it must be reasonable that the Creation of the World should have been performed in six days since the Obligation to observe a Seventh day in remembrance of the Creation implies that God rested on the Seventh day after he had Created the World in Six or in the same space of time which is contained in six days God saw it fitting that a day should be set apart to Commemorate the Creation and to Praise him for all his wonderful Works and that this day should return at such a distance of time and he observed such Order in the Creation that every day between these Periods of time might bring some particular work of it to Remembrance and every Seventh day might conclude in the Commemoration of the whole Creation Our Saviour answers the Pharisees when they proposed the Question to him about Divorces by putting them in Mind of the Order which God used in the Creation Have